Materials scientist David Bibb Fischbach (1926–2013) was an expert on the nature and properties of carbon and graphite, and author of some 70 scientific papers in the field. A native of West Virginia, he served in the US Navy as an electronics technician (1944–1946) before attending Denison University, where he received a B.A. with honors in mathematics and physics (Phi Beta Kappa, 1950). He subsequently earned an M.S. (1951) and Ph.D. (1955) in physics and metallurgy from Yale University. Immediately following graduation from Yale, he joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Materials Science Program, where he worked as a researcher from 1955–1968, taking a visiting research fellowship with the Department of Metallurgy at University College, Swansea, South Wales (1967–1968). After JPL dismantled its Materials Science Program, Fischbach joined the University of Washington’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering as a Research Associate Professor (1969–77). He was promoted to Research Professor in 1977, took sabbatical leave at Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal Université de Bordeaux, France in 1984, was granted Full Professor in his department in 1987, and retired from the UW in 1991. He served as an Associate Editor, Carbon journal, 1979–1991 and was elected a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society in 1991.
Source: JPL Archives
This collection documents David Fischbach’s work as a scientist, teacher, and editor. It includes professional and selected personal correspondence, photographs, research notes and data, proposals, grant applications, reports, outlines, lecture notes and other teaching materials, manuscripts, and reprints of published papers.
No restrictions on access.
Creator's copyrights transferred to the University of Washington Libraries Special Collections.
Elizabeth Fischbach (daughter), April 2023
Notes and transparencies for "Connecting Threads: Carbon Materials Science from Fibers"
Donor note: "DBF was invited to give this seminar prior to his retirement. The transparency has an expanded primary title that differs from the announcement flier, "Connecting Threads; Slender Evidence," and features reproductions of "Shoe" and "Frank & Ernest" comic strips. The "Shoe" strips focus on paper pileup in the life of an academic. "Frank & Ernest" depicts two old guys sitting on a park bench, captioned, "I wish I knew now what I thought I knew twenty years ago." "
Cartoons, comic strips, and clippings used as source material and inspiration, and sometimes posted on his office door in Roberts Hall: "Shoe," "Frank & Ernest," "Peanuts," "Doonsbury," "Potshots," "Bizarro," "Eureka!" among others. Themes: include office clutter, computer technology, academia, science-based jokes, midlife, aging and memory, cigarette smoking.
Donor note: "In his 1991 seminar "Connecting Threads: Carbon Materials Science from Fibers," DBF referred to Perfesser Cosmo Fishhawk (a character in the comic strip "Shoe" by Jeff MacNelly) as "not only a near namesake, but also a role model/ kindred soul." File includes two original cartoons signed "Mr. J." advising "Slow Down" and "Slow down you’r smoking tooo fast. Your friend Mr. J." The pen drawing depicts a bespectacled man wearing a billed cap with broom and dustpan in hand."
Corning, Materials for the Design Engineer, Properties of Corning’s Glass and Glass Ceramic Families, no author; Corning Glass Works 12/79. Engineering with Glass. Corning, Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 62-19567
Donor note: "Dave Fischbach was an associate editor of the journal Carbon 1979–1991. In that capacity, he reviewed and critiqued papers submitted for publication. After his term expired in 1991, he continued as a member of the Honorary Editorial Advisory Board of the journal. Files labelled by year contain incoming and outgoing correspondence; departmental memos; student evaluations; letters of recommendation; incoming requests for research positions paired with DBF replies; lab assistant job description; additional Carbon journal correspondence including referee notes about papers submitted for publication and reviewed by DBF; notifications regarding DBF tenure and retirement; and miscellaneous inquiries and notes. DBF’s professional correspondence 1959–1967 is in JPL582, David Bibb Fischbach Collection, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Archives. Except for letters included in project files, correspondence for the period 1968–1986 is largely unaccounted for, possibly lost to a flood in the basement of the Fischbach home in Bellevue, where DBF moved his office files post-retirement."
Reproduced in papers co-authored by D.B. Fischbach and Kunio Komaki: "Experimental Observations on Carbon Fiber Piezoresistance Behavior" (n.d.) and "Electrical Resistance of Carbon Fibers" (14th Biennial Conf. on Carbon, June 1979); and D.B. Fischbach "Observations on the Properties and Structure of Carbon Fibers (Carbon ’80 Int’l Conf., Baden-Baden, 1980)
Dated 5 Avril 1984 and 28 Juin ’84, Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, Talence Cedex, France
Correspondence and notes
Photographs of UW campus and research slides
Donor note: "Likely from JPL years (most recent date noted is 1964). Includes carbon copy of typescript "The Relationship Between the Preferred Orientation Parameters n and (Greek character "B") by D. B. Fischbach, JPL/Cal Tech, 24 October 1963."
"Exploratory Research on Silicon Nitride Composites" Final Report typescript, Proposal for Renewal (2nd year), correspondence and grant and contract paperwork. D. B. Fischbach, Principal Investigator, and D. McLaren, Research Assistant
Research Proposal to U.W. Ceramic Structural Materials Program, correspondence, report. NASA Grant NASW 199. Abstract data for 35th Pacific Coast Regional Meeting of the American Ceramic Society.
Curriculum vita, biographical data, and documents and correspondence related to post-JPL job search
Includes published papers
Article about Professor D. B. Fischbach’s research
Donor note: "DBF was eighteen at the time of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, concerned about the destructive (as well as productive) potential of "pure" scientific research the questions it raised about scientific ethics in the formative years of his life as a researcher."
Yale University Diplomas, Kappa Sigma Fraternity photographs (1947-1950); Naval Research Laboratory class photograph (1945)
Donor note: "From the mid-1970s—late 1980s, Pat and Dave Fischbach hosted international grad students through the Foundation for International Understanding Through Students (FIUTS). Some of the friendships that resulted were long lived. This file includes requests for host family sponsorship and correspondence with students from Pakistan, Norway, Denmark, Nigeria, Kenya, Japan, Thailand, and Brazil. FIUTS was founded in the 1940s. Note: The UW cancelled FIUTS’ contract in June 2022 and shifted its services for international students to an "integrated UW unit" called CIRCLE. A letter from FIUTS Executive Director Era Schrepfer to "UW Campus Partners and Friends" (March 10, 2022) announcing the change is included."
Lyrics and music for "I Did it Their Way," a parody of the song "My Way," performed on The Prairie Home Companion Show, NPR/KUOW
Series of photographs showing the collapse of the Husky Stadium Expansion by John Stamets
Some portions are in original orders, other portions have been partially disordered. Begun during Fishbach's time at JPL, he maintained it during his time at the UW. The cards are annotated, in some cases providing a synopsis along with his assessment of the content of cited articles.